Has #MeToo Jumped The Shark?

I'm having a hard time with this one too. I actually just finished reading his book, and I thought it was smart and witty and interesting. I love his show, and I think there's something about him that is adorable and hilarious. I really like Aziz Ansari.

That said, I'm conflicted about the account from this woman. To me...I don't know. If I think about my own experiences...I know that my husband can't read every cue I think I'm giving him. Whether it's to stop something or do something different. I am notoriously bad about speaking aloud to tell him what I want, and he's told me many times I need to speak up because he can't read my mind. He absolutely doesn't want to do something that I don't want, but unless I'm physically pushing him away or speaking aloud, he can't always know.

So that said, I think it's perfectly believable that this woman really did think she was giving Aziz cues. I have truly thought I was giving signals, but they weren't drastic enough to make their way through the sexually muddled mind. I mean, when you're in a moment, you're head really goes somewhere else. So Aziz is over here thinking, "This feels good. Sex!" while she's gently moving in a way that she thinks shows she doesn't want it, but he can't see or feel it above the "This feels good. Sex!"

I don't know, though. I wasn't there. So I'm struggling. Especially the account of her crying in her car. Because if she truly feels that she was violated, well, I know how that feels too.

I do know, however, that I believe she should have spoken to him directly. This obviously wasn't rape. I don't think she should have gone to the media. I think she should have said, "Hey...I was uncomfortable with what we did. I was trying to show you that I wanted to stop."

Or she should have walked away as soon as she started feeling uncomfortable. But she is 23. That's young. And she was with a famous comedian. So there are those factors. Was she trying to get a story to tell her friends? Or was she just too young to be confident enough to walk away or ask him out loud to stop?

I don't think we'll ever have true answers to this one. And it's frustrating.

I think those declaring the movement has "jumped the shark" over this are like all the people persistently saying "Is feminism dead?" (The answer to both questions is simple: No.)

That there would be complex stories that people might disagree on isn't a surprise at all, and these are exactly the conversations we need to be having.

Daniel Abraham had what I thought was a good tweet on this story.

As for my own opinion...it's complicated. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship for 3-1/2 years. My sexual agency was absolutely co-opted there, but I have a hard time thinking of it as sexual abuse. I was making a conscious decision: I'll give up X to get Y. Which is coercion, so maybe that makes it actual assault? But I don't want to think of myself as a sexual victim in that relationship. There was so much there that was so much worse than that, and I don't need another label reminding me how horrible it was.

But that's me. If someone else had a similar relationship and was comfortable labeling it sexual abuse, I wouldn't argue with them.

As for the "mind reader" thing...I have a hard time not saying "Oh, grow up" to people like that. If you have to read someone's mind, maybe you should just call it a night, ya know?

As for Ansari, he's clearly a lousy date. Unforgivably lousy? At his age, probably. He's lacking empathy in a pretty basic area, and that's a hard thing to change. Is he Weinstein or Woody Allen? Based on this single account, of course not. But if my kid insisted on dating him I'd tell her to stay the hell out of his apartment.

I DO think there's value in talking about sexual coercion, the cultural idea of men taking "no" as the beginning of a negotiation, and the reality that a hard "no" can actually be physically dangerous for women, even with men they're dating.

Alpha Echo said:

I don't think we'll ever have true answers to this one. And it's frustrating.

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I think the problem with looking for "true answers" on this is that her experience is mind-numbingly common. A large percentage of the women I know have an "ugh, yeah, I had to get home so I just got it over with" story about a date. It's not this specific story that's the issue, it's the mundanity of it.

Did you see the Samantha Bee take on this?

^^ Hope link works.

I am really uncomfortable with the thread title. Jumped the Shark? Really? That saying started and hasn't really evolved from referring to tv shows that became unwatchable after a particular moment, like when Fonzie on Happy Days water-skied over a shark. It's a point on no return. May as well cancel it, because it's a joke now. I'm not going to go off on a rant. Celia is one of my favorite AWers, and I'm not asking for it to be changed. I can live with being a little pissed off every time I see it. And I am more troubled by the similar characterization I am seeing, mostly from men, using this one story to discredit and shut down an entire movement.

This Facebook post that is pretty much where I am, and this excerpt from a follow up post the author, Ann Glaviano, made:

if you're sharing, in earnest, that nyt oped about aziz being guilty of not being a mind reader, ask yourself: if you tell a man, out loud, with your words, that you don't want to be forced to have sex, and he said, okay, i respect that, and then starts to unbutton his pants - who, in that scenario, is being required to read whose mind? the woman (i didn't make that up by the way, that's her account) said out loud that she didn't want to have sex and she didn't want to be forced to have sex. aziz is being lauded for "agreeing" with her. then aziz, in contrast to his words, removes his pants. the woman, it seems, reads HIS mind - reads his body language - assesses his behavior so far and determines he is not going to stop, no matter what she says - and she leaves

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I apologize for not using my own words, but I have been relying on them for two days and I'm not up to it now, not since a Facebook thread from a friend, a liberal woman I've known for fifteen years, who I met through us both being liberal SJW-type women in liberal Boston, did everything but ask what Grace was wearing. They may have gotten to that. It started as a nuanced discussion and after the second post contained nothing except condemnation of Grace. Nasty, ugly, self-congratulatory condemnation.

Oh, wait, one more. This piece is one of the best things I've read in a while:

Misogyny is a Human Pyramid

At this point, we must resist the temptation to view misogyny as a spectrum. This is the wrong way to measure harm; it gives way to a complacency that says, ‘it’s just a joke, it’s not like I actually touched her’. Misogyny isn’t a sliding scale of harm where jokes are situated at the low end and rape at the other. Rather, it functions like a human pyramid, where minor acts support the major by providing, at best, a foundation of blithe indifference, and at worst an atmosphere of amusement at the denigration of women.

At the sprawling base of this pyramid are the innumerable silent men: those who stand idly by as sexism and misogyny play out before them. Their silence might be due to ignorance, intimidation or indifference, but its impact is always the same—silence is complicity, and it creates a stable base for other men to stand on without fear of retribution. Standing on the shoulders of the silent are those who laugh along, allowing sexist comments to be treated as lighthearted jokes. The behavior of these men raises the stakes for objecting, falsely conflating the rejection of casual misogyny with ‘not having a sense of humour’. On their shoulders rest those men who take it one step further and join in on the joke. At every level intent is varied, but the impact remains.

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There is so much to dig into and think about at that link. I'm going to read it at least once more.

There has been a lot of backlash against #MeToo for exactly this kind of reason - allegedly villifying normal sexual behavior in favor of sexual panic-mongering. We can see this kind of backlash in that open letter some French celebrities co-signed (although Catherine Deneuve has already kind of apologized for her part in that... kind of), or the complaints I heard from German men about the new Swedish law defining consent quite narrowly ('only yes means yes' rather than 'no means no').

But isn't that kind of the point? To reach a new consensus of what we consider 'normal' sexual behavior?

It's easy to agree on the Not Raping, but it's 'smaller', less distinct instances like this (ETA: if it really is that ambivalent because apparently she didn't just think 'no', she said it, too) that really challenge our, for lack of a better term, sexual vocabulary. That's why some people have a hard time adjusting their frame when these things get called out along with the less ambivalent #MeToo experiences. In my book, this isn't jumping the shark. This is just fine-tuning.

Max Vaehling said:

There has been a lot of backlash against #MeToo for exactly this kind of reason - allegedly villifying normal sexual behavior in favor of sexual panic-mongering. We can see this kind of backlash in that open letter some French celebrities co-signed (although Catherine Deneuve has already kind of apologized for her part in that... kind of), or the complaints I heard from German men about the new Swedish law defining consent quite narrowly ('only yes means yes' rather than 'no means no').

But isn't that kind of the point? To reach a new consensus of what we consider 'normal' sexual behavior?

It's easy to agree on the Not Raping, but it's 'smaller', less distinct instances like this (ETA: if it really is that ambivalent because apparently she didn't just think 'no', she said it, too) that really challenge our, for lack of a better term, sexual vocabulary. That's why some people have a hard time adjusting their frame when these things get called out along with the less ambivalent #MeToo experiences. In my book, this isn't jumping the shark. This is just fine-tuning.

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A couple things - interesting about the Swedish law, but that makes sense. Only yes means yes takes away any confusion. You would think that the word "no" would, but...IDK.

I just read the entire Facebook post - the longer one Ann Glaviano posted in the comments. And...everything she says makes sense. I'd forgotten that Grace said she told him she didn't want sex. When I read that initial report, my thought was, "how could he have read that any differently? Why would he proceed to take off his pants?"

The more I think about it, the more upset I am. I remember my first date with my husband. I actually told him he could not take off his pants. It didn't make sense to him because I allowed him to do a lot of other things, but he followed my instructions. Did he ask me at multiple intervals whether he could take off his pants yet? Yes. I told him no, and he didn't. I was buck-ass naked, and he couldn't understand why that was okay for me, yet he had to keep his pants on. He kept them on anyway.

Who cares what her reasons were? Why she went inside? It doesn't matter what stage of intimacy you're in. When you tell someone no, or stop, or I don't want to do that...the other person should stop immediately. Even if they can't understand why.

Gosh, it's so disappointing.

Alpha Echo said:

Gosh, it's so disappointing.

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Yeah, agreed. I've felt disappointed by so much of this. Also angry, because we were talking about this stuff when I was in high school in the 1970s, and I'm sure that wasn't the first time.

The Big Reset Button always seems to put us at "It's normal for men to take sex and the rest of us just have to play defense." Which is a really good way to shut down the normal sexuality of a large percentage of the population.

"Jumped the shark," really? As if there are no gray areas between perfectly appropriate behavior and rape? And trying to talk about that kills credibility? Nope, women, you've ruined everything by bringing up coercion, movement is over, no more discussion.

We were always going to have to start examining more subtle behaviors, because letting that pass as "normal" behavior is a big part of what leads to much worse. I think Samantha Bee nailed it. "What many fail to understand is that it doesn't have to be rape to ruin your life, and it doesn't have to ruin your life to be worth speaking out about."

As for the idea that "she should have just spoke up"--there was a meme going around Twitter recently with screenshots of news headlines where men murdered women who refused to have sex with them (in one case, a married couple). If you don't get why it might be hard for a woman to speak up for herself while being pressured to have sex because you've never been in such a situation, then count yourself lucky.

lizmonster said:

Yeah, agreed. I've felt disappointed by so much of this. Also angry, because we were talking about this stuff when I was in high school in the 1970s, and I'm sure that wasn't the first time.

The Big Reset Button always seems to put us at "It's normal for men to take sex and the rest of us just have to play defense." Which is a really good way to shut down the normal sexuality of a large percentage of the population.

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This expresses some of my complicated and conflicted feelings on this, as do your earlier posts. I HATE that we have this social norm where it's supposed to be a "game," enjoyed by both genders, that men push, "hit on," and pressure women, while women play coy, making it impossible (supposedly) for men to know when no (or generally uncomfortable body language and evasive behavior) really means no.

I don't buy that men are too obtuse to read body language. Men are certainly good at parsing out other social situations where subtle cues are being sent in interactions with other men. They can make judgements about a situation based on the strength and sincerity of another person's handshake, FFS. Surely they can judge a situation based on the enthusiasm with which a kiss is returned. As for losing that ability to think during the heat of the moment, I've had "hot and bothered" guys stop and ask what's wrong when it's become uncomfortable for me and I'm not responding appropriately.

Suggesting a new default, of men not coming on strong to women or pressuring them for sex unless they know for sure such overtures are welcome, is met with a lot of defensive hostility from men and from some women. For some, the reaction is akin to having a favorite toy taken away. Is it that hard to come up with a new and creative language of consent that can be part of a game, one that's mutually understood by the people who enjoy playing by those rules? Maybe some sort of code words?

Another thing that can be confusing in discussions is sometimes unwanted flirting and pressure is just an annoyance, like a buzzing fly. Other times it is scary or oppressive. The situation and environment plays a role here. Behavior I might expect and brush off in one situation would be weird as hell in others.

Another thing is that sometimes a woman makes a conscious decision to have sex with someone when we're not really in the mood or even attracted to that person because it's easier and less awkward than explaining why you are somehow alone in their place with them, or in bed with them and didn't plan on ending up there, or are having second thoughts for no "good" reason. Most of the time, I lean towards feeling that a woman is responsible for her decision here, because (as others have said), guys aren't mind readers.

One complexity, though, is some guys seem to specialize in setting up these situations. Sex with uncomfortable partner who lies there like a lump can't be all that gratifying. If it's just about being horny and needing to shoot one's wad, why not just masturbate?

I assume it's something to do with notching one's bedpost for bragging rights about how many women this guy has had sex with (or how many times per week he has sex if he's pressuring a steady partner). This is the kind of male thinking--that having lots of sex (and often with lots of different women) by any means short of brute force is a mark of manhood--that many of us would like to see die in a fire.

It's this kind of thinking that leads to the whole problem.

Celia Cyanide said:

I understand. The only reason why I used it is because a lot of people have been using that phrase since it happened, and I didn't want the thread title to be about Ansari.

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Thank you for understanding. (the rest of this isn't directed at you)

I just...I'd seen it yesterday and was not ready to express what I felt and then I saw the nice liberal lady thread that had me ready to throw things. Almost every post was "She shouldn't have gone home with him." And then actually turned everyone pretty much agreeing that no one should have sex of give oral sex that early and not unless you're in something you know will become a loving relationship. That's fine for those who choose it, but I've said before here that in 1977 having cancer at 16 turned was the most freeing thing that ever happened to me, because I had sex in case I didn't survive and then decided all that "good girls don't" stuff I'd grown up with was toxic and I would have sex whenever I wanted, safely and sanely. Best thing that ever happened to me. Poetry is my weakest genre, but one of the only poems I've published, one of my favorite things I've written, is roughly about all that.

Even with all that, I internalized a lot of this stuff. I met my husband in 1993, and for over twenty years, until the Hollywood Access tape, I've told it as this cute story of him being too shy to approach and me giving hints and him slowly approaching, then speaking to me. I've said he was so shy he asked permission to kiss me after our second date. It's not like I only realized after two decades that he's not shy. I just didn't get it, and only recently figure out that he was being respectful of my boundaries and didn't presume that a couple of flirty smiles meant I wanted him to come ask for my phone number. That's how used to being relentlessly pursued I was. But still...I am seeing way too much slut shaming with regard to the Aziz Ansari story.

For myself, I am going to do what I can to keep the movement from shutting down and a Twitter thread by Bree Newsome has given me the direction I want to take my efforts. Tarana Burke started this and I am going to be taking my cue from her and other women of color. There are a lot of ways for people to move forward, and this is going to be mine.

(Link was briefly wrong as I was sending one link to a friend and posting one here and mixed them up. Should be right now)

As a movement finds itself, there's going to be some grey area that needs to be figured out, and perhaps the pendulum temporarily swings too far the other way. But to me, a bigger sign of "jumping the shark" is the Woody Allen (who I see mentioned above, as if he's Weinstein) case. In Allen's case, for anyone who wants to put emotion aside and look at it honestly, it is clearly a case of none of us know what happened. There's only a single accuser, with no pattern of preying on prepubescent girls, and, for people who know much more about the case than any of us or the public figures who care to comment; no agreement on what happened. Dylan, her mother, and her brother Ronan believe Allen is guilty. A prosecutor and Judge agreed with them. On the other side, Allen denies the charges, and his adopted son, and Dylan's brother (who was at the house on said day), says Allen is not guilty and that he and Dylan are the victim of an abusive mother. The child welfare experts who interviewed all those involved in the case concluded "It is our expert opinion that Dylan was not abused by Mr. Allen." (https://radaronline.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/yale-new-haven-hospital-allen.pdf). Clearly, if people this close to the case can't agree what happened, then, as much as some people would like to pretend that they know, the fact is they don't. Yet many in the media and others want to destroy a man's career and reputation over this. If this is the road we go down, the innocent will be taken down along with the guilty.

Alpha Echo said:

A couple things - interesting about the Swedish law, but that makes sense. Only yes means yes takes away any confusion. You would think that the word "no" would, but...IDK.

I just read the entire Facebook post - the longer one Ann Glaviano posted in the comments. And...everything she says makes sense. I'd forgotten that Grace said she told him she didn't want sex. When I read that initial report, my thought was, "how could he have read that any differently? Why would he proceed to take off his pants?"

The more I think about it, the more upset I am. I remember my first date with my husband. I actually told him he could not take off his pants. It didn't make sense to him because I allowed him to do a lot of other things, but he followed my instructions. Did he ask me at multiple intervals whether he could take off his pants yet? Yes. I told him no, and he didn't. I was buck-ass naked, and he couldn't understand why that was okay for me, yet he had to keep his pants on. He kept them on anyway.

Who cares what her reasons were? Why she went inside? It doesn't matter what stage of intimacy you're in. When you tell someone no, or stop, or I don't want to do that...the other person should stop immediately. Even if they can't understand why.

Gosh, it's so disappointing.

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I love this post. If she's saying no, why in the world is he taking off his pants? And I agree 100% that it should not matter which stage of intimacy you are in. Sometimes a moment of frightening clarity can arise mid-sex, and that is a scary fucking feeling to know at that moment that its all wrong and you want it to stop and to stop now. Any man(in my opinion) worth a dime would immediately respect that. It doesn't mean he can't be annoyed or disappointed he has the right to feel whatever he wants...but he has to stop. End. Of. Story.

Just floating the idea that if you're a person concerned that the movement is "going too far" that maybe Woody Allen - a man who's so far suffered zero professional consequences - isn't the hill you want to die on.

ETA I was pretty grossed out when he married his stepdaughter, but I kept watching his movies. When the abuse allegations came out, I stopped. IRL I don't know anyone besides me who did that.

I had a guy put on the brakes in the middle of a sexual encounter once. I'll admit I didn't take it well or react with the greatest maturity. It was a blow to my ego and a huge disappointment, because I did like him and had hoped that the intimacy reflected actual romantic feelings that were developing mutually, not just sex. It hurt when he said he realized this wasn't where he wanted to go with our friendship. Not something most women are conditioned to expect--the guy getting cold feet. It was humiliating, which is silly of me to have thought (in hindsight), because he actually showed a lot of character and respect by not going forward when he realized he didn't have the right romantic feelings about me and our situation.

But though I was mad and hurt, I sure as heck stopped when he said stop.

I don't know if I would have picked up on awkwardness right away if he hadn't said no and went forward with discomfort in the situation so as not to hurt my feelings.

I do think there's a difference between sex one regrets the next day, or even sex one knows isn't the best idea while it occurs, an actual coercion. There's definitely a difference between awkward sex and rape, and nice people can make mistakes in sexual and romantic situations.

Does someone who is not guilty of actual coercion (or of setting up these situations deliberately) deserve to be shunned and for their career to be over after one incident that turns out to have been a mistake in hindsight? I don't think so. It would sure be weird to have someone you had what you thought was mutually consensual, if not exactly satisfying, sex years and years ago accuse you of assault or coercion.

Most of the guys who are being lambasted and forced to resign or whatever, though, are being accused by more than one woman (notice how the Niel Degrasse Tyson situation dropped out of view when no one else came forward and the allegation went unsubstantiated by any mainstream outlet), and many have even admitted to doing the things they are accused of doing (some insist it's no big deal, though others say it was a mistake).

The main question I have regarding the #MeToo movement is how a guy who is accused when he really, truly isn't the kind of guy who pressures or preys on women and who really believes himself innocent should react?

I tend to believe the women in these cases, and women have been dismissed or accused of lying (or being deluded) or oversensitive for way too long. Yet it's probably the case that a few guys who haven't done anything terrible will be accused of something. It's usually clear when a story is blatantly false--events, alibis and dates don't add up and so on. But what if one or two truly are cases of differing perceptions of a situation, where the man really didn't know he was hurting someone? How do we know, and how do we allow for this possibility without accusing the women involved of being hysterical or liars?

When guilty people like Brock Turner and Roman Polanski start getting the punishment they deserve EVERY TIME, then I'll start worrying about a dude who may or may not be innocent, but hasn't lost an iota of "respectability" in his industry. Keep me posted.

I feel like one of the difficulties we come up against is that we don't have a good mechanism for dealing with behavior that is harmful but isn't criminal. That Samantha Bee quote is golden about how something doesn't have to ruin your life to speak out about.

It's particularly disappointing when men like Aziz Ansari who can talk the talk, turn out to not walk the walk. But that shouldn't be so much of a surprise when you consider that hypocrisy is so common - especially when someone has wealth, fame and power.

Elsewhere I'm reading that the original article by Katie Way at Babe.com was the the writer is trying to lump this kind of story with #MeToo in a way that she is not interested in #MeToo but looking to further their career. That is "Grace" is not in the wrong for sharing her story with Aziz, but that the story was written and plugged for the benefit of Way and Babe.com and not "Grace" or Aziz. It is written as revenge porn more than it is an exposé. Or at least that is the accusation. We've seen this story before with that infamous Rolling Stone article so that is what is drawing some to that conclusion.

Found an articulation of this argument: https://jezebel.com/babe-what-are-you-doing-1822114753

Roxxsmom said:

The main question I have regarding the #MeToo movement is how a guy who is accused when he really, truly isn't the kind of guy who pressures or preys on women and who really believes himself innocent should react?

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As a guy, of course I thought of that, too, at some point. It could happen, right? (Leaving aside the sheer statistics of how unlikely it is, based both on the percentage of false accusations among allegiations, and my sex life.) Personally, I tend to judge people by what they do rather than what they say they did or didn't do, so I'd say the short answer to your question would be: Respectfully?

If a man acknowledges that a woman's account was different and he apparently misread a situation, then moves on to offer any help he can give to solve the problem, I'm more inclined to believe whatever account he gives from his own perspective. I guess the question is: Does he still really believe himself to be innocent after hearing the other account?

I remember at least one recent court case in Switzerland where a woman sued a prominent man over alleged non-consensual sex practises and lost. And then got counter-sued for, I think it was libel? As a spectator, I can't tell what did or didn't happen. But I can tell the difference between a man apologizing for misreading a situation and a man claiming libel.

#Metoo isn't going to be over until men in general stop acting like jerks. That means viewing the woman they're on a date with as more than a puzzlebox where, if you figure out the right places to apply pressure, sex is released and you win. And, I think, it'll keep on until women are confident in saying "You know what? I don't want to have sex with you. Bye now."

Women are often stuck with the situation of "this date is going south, but maybe if I negotiate cleverly, I can get it back on track and he'll start acting again like the guy I wanted to date." It's not just getting out without being assaulted. It's not "causing a scene," because if there's anything women are trained not to do, it's cause a scene. Dating becomes like going out in public with a tired toddler, and feeling ashamed and inadequate when he starts to tantrum because you won't buy him the toy he wants.

Men like Ansari *think* they want women who will, whenever they feel pressured to do something they don't want, storm out and slam the door behind them. But most of them really don't. Why? Because the "whine and nag and grope until the women thinks it's more trouble to resist than comply" works for them. They're getting sex this way. They don't see a reason to change, because they're happy, and if women aren't? Not their problem.

And when women actually act strong and independent and won't take this nonsense, these men start whining about how women be bitches and manhaters, and it's all the fault of feminism that they can't get laid.

Twick said:

#Metoo isn't going to be over until men in general stop acting like jerks. That means viewing the woman they're on a date with as more than a puzzlebox where, if you figure out the right places to apply pressure, sex is released and you win. And, I think, it'll keep on until women are confident in saying "You know what? I don't want to have sex with you. Bye now."

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I agree with you, but the huge caveat on the last bit is that it's actually dangerous for women to be that blunt. (I know you know this, Twick, but I just wanted to highlight it separately.) A while back someone on Twitter compiled stories of women doing something as innocuous as declining to give a stranger on the street their telephone number. The amount of violence reported was staggering.

If you're stuck in someone's apartment and they start getting insistent and aren't picking up your "no, thanks, dude" cues (or "no, I do not want to have intercourse" complete sentences), part of you is going to be thinking "better make sure I don't piss him off." And it's not because women are indecisive or coy or want to be pursued; it's because in the back of our minds there's always the possibility that you're going to kill us.

That Atwood quote is dead on. And if you're a man thinking that quote is unfair, be one of the ones who help us change the world so it's not the truth anymore.

Celia Cyanide said:

But when I see men asking, "Well, if she didn't want to fuck him, why did she suck his dick?" it's strange to me. I had no idea that some men thought that way.

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I think this gets to the heart of a key component of this entire conversation. Men and women often do speak different...dialects, maybe. I think some percentage of men purposefully refuse to acknowledge women's verbal and non-verbal STOP cues that they do understand (it works for them, as Twick points out, or else they are abusive jerks), but there is also a subset of men who don't get it out of lack of understanding the dialect. Maybe out of inexperience, or maybe out of a lifetime spent not having to learn, or any number of other reasons.

There is something to the old "Women are from Venus, men are from Mars" perspective. In my own experience, I've found there are times when men genuinely do not understand what a woman is trying to signal, just as there are women who can't fathom that a man couldn't understand what she was signalling, it seemed so obvious to her. Or that a man might think about sex and progression so very differently from a woman.

Which isn't an excuse, and is not to say it's up to women to make sure the guy gets it. Men need to take responsibility for learning, too. "Only Yes means yes" is the gold standard answer to preventing a lot of the misunderstanding, far better than "well, she didn't say No." But dragging universal acceptance there is a gargantuan uphill battle, especially when you consider how many deeply entrenched patriarchal cultures still thrive in the world. Compound that in the US, where we are a melting pot of cultures. It's a bit easier to shift the line of consent (though not easy, by any stretch) in a place like Sweden or Norway, where the culture is somewhat more homogenized, where it's already established that women have more equality. In the states we haven't made it that far in public life (ie: income equality or the passage of the ERA), much less what goes on behind closed doors.